Dealing, day by day we all deal with our own problems
Imagine what the world would be like if people remembered that and to
View and treat everyone how they would want to be treated themselves
Even if you don’t look like them or have the same beliefs?
Rhetorical, you would think that would be a Rhetorical question
Some might even think it is sarcasm so much that they know the right answer
In reality, people ignore what is clearly right
To taste the feeling of acceptance and fitting in
Youth and adults both guilty of this trend
Impacting generations then, and at this rate also the ones to come
Simply being yourself and things that you cannot change fuel this trend
Why does one feel the need to bring someone down?
How does one have so much hate in their heart?
At what point is enough finally enough?
Though it is not a big deal to me, does it mean it is not important at all?
Many logical questions later
And still
Knowledge, common sense grade school knowledge which must be rocket science
Evicts out of one’s mind and
Strategically and collectively out of others
Like a forest fire or tornado, hatred has the power to quickly spread and
It destroys everything in its path
Fearfully looking at the destruction it causes
Everyone or I should say most conforms to the majority instead of stopping it
So many people have to learn how to deal with the negativity and hate from
Others for just existing and it’s not okay
Unite!
Numbers, there is much strength and power in numbers
In the same way many people follow others to spread hate
Quantity can be used to spread love and fight against senseless demise
Underdog is love
Expecting it to lose but it always wins
Accountability is what change starts with you
Never know what someone else is going through
Don’t add on to one’s stress and problems
So, the next time you see arrogance against diversity
Please don’t allow it to continue, embrace diversity
Everyone is different which is great
Capture or better yet
Imagine
Aworld where
Love wins
Dawn Allen, Portrait of ChrisSean Evans, Kansas City, March 2019
“Diversity” is inspired by my friend ChrisSean Evans who I interviewed because we both have differences in the community being a minority and having health issues. Us both being black but him having dyspnea and myself having sickle cell disease, we could relate about the struggles of being made fun of racially, but not about our different health issues Therefore I thought it would be interesting to interview him and compare and contrast. During the interview, we discussed his dyspnea, difficult or labored breathing, and how people made fun of him. He explained when one started, more and more people would join in just for the fun of it. In my poem, I stated, “Fearfully looking at the destruction it causes everyone, or I should say most conforms.” Which reminded me of the play “Rhinoceros” and how people comply with the majority with no actual logic behind it. It’s just more comfortable and easier to be with the majority than fight and stand for what you believe in. He also told me how these events made him wish he can change himself, which really upset me. Thus I wrote the poem about diversity, and how it is a beautiful part of life that we should embrace. No one should be discriminated against because of their race, religion, disability, etc. My friend closed the interview by stressing that if someone were to learn one thing about his experiences, it’s to treat others with the same respect you would want for yourself. “Diversity” is inspired by and explains exactly his goal from the situations he has been through.
How does one describe sound to a deaf person? Conversely, how does one that is deaf describe deafness to a hearing person? I have pondered these two questions all my life having grown up with someone that is almost entirely deaf. From birth, my brother has required a hearing aid to hear due to a developmental malformation of his ear canals. His deafness and awkward appearance has influenced him physically, socially, and spiritually.
My younger brother by one year, Jens Kenneth Benson, was born on February 18, 2000, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. As the receiving nurse inspected Jens in her arms, her eyes widened and smile inverted. “Call the neonatologist”, she whispered frantically.
In under a minute, Jens was ushered out of the room followed by a jolting slam of the door. Hours passed and the worry in my parents’ minds grew exponentially until a specialist came into the room for an urgent briefing.
“Susan, David, sorry to keep you waiting in this state. We have examined your son and become familiar with the situation.”
“Susan, I understand you are a doctor as well?”
“Yes, an orthopedic surgeon.”
“Splendid. You will be able to better understand what I am about to tell you. Your son has a malformation of his ears and canals. As you can see here, these are photos of his left and right ears:
Jonathan Benson, Jens’ left ear, Kansas City, February 2019, All Rights Reserved.
Jonathan Benson, Jens’ right ear, Kansas City, February 2019, All Rights Reserved.
On the outside, it appears that his left ear is less developed than the right. Inside, however, our X-rays have revealed to us that his ear canals are sealed shut. This means that sound cannot pass through the eardrum and be received by the cochlear nerve, the nerve that transmits auditory sensory information to the brain.”
As my father bowed his head in disbelief, my mother leaned forward with her last ounce of hope and asked, “Will my son ever hear?”
The specialist replied with a relieving smile, “I am glad you asked that, Dr. Bonar. Yes, however, he will require assistance via a hearing aid. We have multiple options for you to-”
“A hearing aid?” pondered my father.
“That’s right. We have multiple options for you to pursue, however, we recommend a non-invasive device starting out. Take a look here:
Jonathan Benson, Jens’ non-invasive, bone-conduction hearing aids, February 2019, All Rights Reserved.
These hearing aids allow him to hear via bone conduction. The hearing aids themselves receive audio signals from the air and convert those sounds into vibrations. They are pressed up against the skull via an elastic band around the head. This allows the devices to vibrate the skull, sending auditory information to the cochlear nerve, and then to the brain. Take these home so he can start wearing the hearing aids after two weeks time.”
My parents and the specialist shook hands. “God bless you,” my mother whispered with a relieving gasp and my father nodded in thanks.
Jonathan Benson, Jens’ at age 3, Kansas City, September 2003, All Rights Reserved.
Fast forward three years and my brother was surviving preschool. He had to wear a headband wrapped conspicuously around his head to hold his hearing aid in place. Classmates constantly made fun of his headband and mocked his hard of hearing.
One time, Jens and a few classmates waited outside the drop off zone for their rides home. “Hey Jens, are you gonna go home and play with your barbie dolls?” a classmate barked.
Jens did not hear. The classmate pushed him on the shoulder and raised his voice, “Hey Jens, I said are you gonna go home and play with your barbie dolls!”
“Wha-? Baby yogs? Hawwy and Kodak?” Jens faintly replied.
“BAR. BIE. DOLLS! Do you even speak english?”
“Jonathan and Jens! Over here!” my mother screamed from the circle drive.
I ran over to the car, swung my backpack into the back seat, and before I could get in she yelled, “Go get Jens. He’s over there. I don’t think he heard me.”
I heard chanting as I approached the scene, “Jens is a sissy girl! Jens is a sissy girl with a headband!”
His face was bright red and was crying, but turned back to normal when I nudged and told him, “Jens, mom is here. It’s time to go home.”
We both got into the car, relieved the day was over. “How was your day at school?” mom inquired.
My brother and I both let out a long, unenthusiastic, “Good.”
“What did you learn today?” she pondered.
I replied, “I made paper mache of dragons and learned about penguins in Antarctica-”
She directed her attention to Jens, “That sounds fun. Jens how about you?”
“Wha-?” Jens replied looking out of the window.
She raised her voice a little louder and looked into the rear-view mirror, “I said: ‘what did you learn today?’”
“I-I learned abou-I forgot. Baby yogs?” he said hesitantly.
“Baby dogs? Did you tell them about Harry and Kodiak?” she replies in disbelief. Harry and Kodiak were the names of our two pet dogs at the time.
“Yeah,” Jens responded with his eyes gazing upon the laughing children pointing fingers at him from outside the car.
Over the next few months, I would overhear my parents talking in their bedroom about Jens’ dire situation. Jens’ current hearing aid was not loud enough for him to hear anything quieter than a shout and my parents were desperate to prevent him from getting held back in school. One night, they were both elated. “I received word back from a doctor that will take our case,” whispered my father.
I could hear my mother jump out of bed and, above a whisper, say, “Oh Jesus, tell me, who?”
“His name is Dr. Niparko from Johns Hopkins up in Baltimore. He specializes in otoneurology and can fix Jens’ hearing for good.” he replies.
“For good? How?” she shoots back.
My father explains in detail, “He says he will have to implant osseointegrated screws into the skull on both sides of the head that will connect to hearing aids. The hearing aids will receive the sound, the screws will vibrate the skull, and then the cochlear nerves will pick up the vibrations. He will be able to hear at the level of a normal child.”
My mother tears in her eyes jumped back into the bed, “Thank God. How soon can we see him?”
Jonathan Benson, Jens’ osseointegrated screw, Kansas City, February 2019, All Rights Reserved.
My father and brother flew out to Baltimore for an appointment within a month and had the procedure done within two. Over the next few years, his hearing drastically improved. His speaking and learning ability returned to their normal levels for a child of his age and he no longer had to wear a headband.
Jens’ social battle with his malformation was far from over. Maturing as an individual, his malformed ears and deafness affected his every choice and related circumstance (6:38). Over the years spanning middle school and high school, he slowly became more introverted and antisocial. He switched many schools and was even held back one year in need of smaller classrooms and special tutoring to compensate for his special condition (1:37). Physically, he started growing his hair out down past his malformed ears in order to appear normal to the outside world. His self-esteem slowly descended with time and by freshman year of high school, he was spending the majority of his days in refuge behind a harmless computer screen in a quiet bedroom.
In contrast to my brother’s disability, my ears were my prized possession. I was an avid guitar player and was playing bass guitar for my high school’s jazz band and pit orchestra. Our disparities and lack of understanding of one another constantly triggered arguments between us two. Below is one instance of our arguments.
I was 17, a sophomore, and my brother 16, a freshman. We were both attending the same high school at the time; however, my brother was struggling with grades and was in the process of transferring to a smaller school. I regretfully remember saying something like this to him, “You’re an idiot. Transferring schools will look terrible on your transcript. I mean, what did you expect? You literally just sit in your room, never cut your hair, and play video games all day. You need to man the f**k up and come out of the closet for once.”
He replied with stray eyes, “You wouldn’t understand.”
I argued back, “Are you f**king kidding me? I put in the work. I made straight A’s and B’s on top of playing multiple sports AND working a part-time job on the weekends.”
The conversation ended with him mumbling, “It’s easier for you, and you wouldn’t understand.”
Overhearing our shouting, my father later that night sat with me in the living room with a baseball game on the TV. “Why were you shouting at Jens earlier?” inquired my dad under the dim light.
“Because he is lazy and is about to make a big mistake transferring schools.” I shot back with disgust.
“He’s not transferring schools because he is lazy.” he explained.
I tested him, “Oh, is that so? When was the last time he came out of his room or cut his hair or got a job? I can’t remember.”
He then repeated the same thing Jens always said, “It’s easier for you. You wouldn’t understand.”
I threw up my arms and argued, “Everybody says that. It’s a cliche. He’s just hiding from his problems instead of facing them, and that’s going to bite him in the arse one day.”
He then laid it all out, “Jonathan, he’s transferring schools because he can’t hear inside large classrooms with all of the background noise. It’s not because he’s lazy. And you were making fun of his hair? Give me a break. You know why he grows out his hair, right?”
At that moment, I successfully predicted what he was about to say in my mind, “He grows out his hair in order to hide his malformed ears,”
He went on, “That’s right. He’s your brother and his brother is the last person he needs making fun of him. It’s about time you hear me out for once.”
I thought a lot about that late night conversation with my dad. He was right. I did not understand because I have two perfectly working ears and a normal body that I do not have to worry about on a “nanosecond” basis (6:38). As a perfectly normal individual by society’s standards, I was able to work and be successful without any special accommodations. In Jens’ case, his disability made it almost impossible for him to find a suitable job or school that would accommodate his disability. In other words, Jens was not hiding from the world, the world was hiding from him.
At the time of writing this narrative, I am enrolled in a class studying Nazi Occupied Europe and the Holocaust. Upon analyzing my brother’s testimony, I have drawn many parallels between my brother and the victims of the Nazis leading up to and during World War II. Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Germany and Europe not only targeted Jews, but also non-Aryan ethnicities, homosexuals, and the disabled. Just as these people were deemed unfit to work by the Nazis, Jens has also been denied several jobs by society today. He explained that he had to cross out many of his top career paths due to the inadequate level of accommodation available for his disability (10:07). The less tolerant a society is of certain people, the closer it is to committing mass atrocities like the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. Therefore, it is important for a society to adequately accommodate those less fortunate and strive to be more inclusive.
Today I am elated to see Jens thriving. He is now in his senior year at Accelerated Schools of Overland Park, a school that specializes in teaching kids with various disabilities. Not only is he making great grades, but he also has many friends, and holds a part-time job on the weekends. The most memorable part of the interview for me was when he told me that even though his deafness cripples him physically, it strengthens his character and teaches him how to be a better person (23:41).
Jonathan Benson, Portrait of Jonathan and Jens, Kansas City, February 2019, All Rights Reserved.
This cage does not have walls Nor a ceiling, nor a floor But fingers and toes And nobody knows Between my ears I'm fighting a war.
Sometimes I can't look at myself I won't stand in front of the mirror If I do I'm left reeling And can't shake the feeling That my identity isn't so clear.
Some people do not believe me They won't call me by the right name They tease and they taunt me Do they know that it haunts me That they think my gender's a false claim.
I feel like there's no one behind me My rights are not well protected And all I can do is pray That my liberties aren't taken away By the people who have been elected.
We don't have good representation We're rarely portrayed in a good light. In the media we're shown as a joke Or a hooker out having a smoke Few networks will show our true plight.
I wish people would let us be Why should you be upset or even care About what I wear and how I present If it is to no one's detriment So before you judge, or flash me a glare
Please think about how you would feel If you were on my side of the deal.
Daniel Zender, Painting, Kansas City, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
For this project I interviewed my friend, Parker Perrin, at my house on February 28th, 2019. Parker is a trans boy who attends Staley High School in North Kansas City. He enjoys theatre, music, as well as his bird, Hamlet. Parker has known he was trans since he was 12 years old. However, he was not able to come out until recently. Even then, he has only been able to come out to friends and not his family. Trans people are a minority in the United States that are both brought up all the time and simultaneously not talked about at all. In other words, while trans issues have been featured in more news recently, they are usually being talked about without trans people being part of the conversation. This one-sided argument results in an ignorant society that is not actually able to see trans issues from a trans person’s perspective. Even doing this assignment I feel as if I walk a very thin line, because it’s important to let minorities speak, and not speak for them. Even when it is well intended, allies often speak over or for the very minority they are trying to defend or advocate for.
This poem is from the point of view of a trans person because I felt that would be the most effective way to evoke compassion and understanding in the audience. However, since I am not a member of this community, and haven’t experienced these things, I tried to be more general to avoid misrepresenting the thoughts and feelings of people in the trans community. Gender dysphoria is the feeling that your body and body parts do not match the gender that you identify with. Trans people often experience dysphoria. Dysphoria can lead to a deep-set discomfort and self-confidence issues that can make it hard to look at themselves or think about how other people see them. In my poem I tried to describe this feeling in the first and second stanza. In the third stanza I talk about the general disrespect that members of the trans community deal with on a daily basis. In my interview with Parker, he talked about how every negative reaction and instance where he is misidentified weighs on him and hurts his self-confidence. In the fourth stanza I talk about the fact that trans people are not protected by their government. In recent years trans people have had their rights threatened and even taken away by our current administration several times. During my interview with Parker, one issue that was brought to my attention is the social stigma that surrounds trans people. Throughout popular media, trans people are shown as sex workers, predators, and are incorrectly portrayed as people who are simply pretending to be a member of the opposite sex. I reference this in the fifth stanza of the poem. These harmful stereotypes create a large problem with how society views the trans community, and people then use these stereotypes to validate their own hateful prejudices. When these harmful stereotypes and gross misunderstandings are perpetuated in our society, it desensitizes us to the issue and makes possessing negative thoughts about the trans community seem more acceptable. This is evidenced by the fact that in our current government, many officials, including our president, actively take away trans rights, such as the right to serve their country. Even in our home town of Kansas City, several sitting council members outwardly oppose the LGBT community. I talk about this political tension and violation of rights and freedoms in the fourth stanza of the poem.
In interviewing Parker, I gained a deeper insight into the problems and feelings experienced by members of the trans community and learned a lot from this about how to be an ally. The trans community is one that needs to be given a platform on which to speak and present their thoughts and feelings, so that our society can grow and become more accepting of other people’s lives and experiences.
Kind of like cutting off your legs just to see if you’re capable
You strip a little piece of dignity
From the small number of people who have any clarity
You pour a little price into curiosity
Slap a name on it for the people who live within the causal luminosity
They say to be one with others
But how do we coexist without having the same Mother
The moon and the son
They rotate like two linear buns
The universe spins on the same frequency
Even if we don’t speak the same currency
If you bounce the moon off it’s timeline
Is the sun sitting there waiting to see if the time’s right?
One sets as the other one rises
Its all about how they handle each other’s vices
You have one language that’s just sugar and spices
And one language that’s all high rises
That’s how it feels to be an outcast
“All things in this world die”
According to someone who claims that they don’t hide
Shifting paths, living in masks
Do you walk or do you run?
Are you the moon or are you the sun?
Artist Rendition:
Author unknown, illustration of the moon and sun, downloaded on April 1, 2019, All rights reserved.
My narrative poem addressed some things from my point of view which is looking into a window through L’s point of view. The first stanza starts off with the moon and sun comparison. This is a big theme that ties the entire piece together. I talked about how one (the moon/sun) sets while the other one rises. The moon and sun are constantly on their own wavelength, rotation, time, and speed. They’re working together as a team but they’re also their own individual energy source. To try and make more sense of this we must give a little background on the person in interest. During my interview with L, they gave me insight into some of the struggles they had to deal with on the daily due to the lack of documentation their parents have. They are considered “aliens” according to the government and the laws held within this country. The moon and sun comparison has multiple ties into it but the main one is that the moon represents the minorities while the sun represents the government and/or upper class. Undocumented people are “outcasts.” In the interview, L states that “there [were] actually a couple situations where [their] parent [was] uhm— they weren’t embarrassed but they, they were treated less than a human”(1:51). My last line in my first stanza states “one walks as the other one runs” in correlation to the idea of the moon and sun being two different kinds of people. Imagine yourself in a situation like the rabbit and the tortoise. Who runs and who walks? That is kind of the concept I am trying to portray. Do you eat or do you stave?
In the second stanza, you can see the input of my personal opinion. I start off talking about the moon being an outcast and then I continue with the “cycle” aspect of the theme. In a sense, the government and everybody else has to work In a cycle in order to coexist and function in the same society. “Bigots like Donald Trump, treat them like they’re recyclable.” I assumed my audience has a slight comprehension of what is going on concerning our current president and the status of his demands for this country. The laws and newly founded apprehensions regarding undocumented people have really stunted the thought process for the hope of all humanity. They are being treated like they are “recyclable.” In stanza three, I talk about the “piece of paper” and how “we make up whether or not you are coherent and able.” The piece of paper is the document (s) that L’s parents do not have, the tangible and physical recycled broken-down piece of wood that determines their entire status and quality of life in this country. I compare this to “cutting off your legs, just to see if you’re capable” in kind of a sarcastic but ironic kind of light. In the interview, L talks about his parent’s most recent struggle. Their mom had just recently gotten into a car accident, trying to get the car fixed and the insurance companies to comply with the financial struggles of having to hire a lawyer. All of that can be taxing but even more taxing on someone who is illegally living in this country. Simple things are harder to obtain. The sun is the center of the universe, it has multiple energy forms relying on its energy and resources in order to function. It’s just like modern day society, the government is in control of everything, the center of attention, meanwhile, the moon, (the minorities, the outcasts, the “aliens”) is in the back pulling most of the weight getting little to no credit and is usually ridiculed along the way. The people of the moon live humbly for things that don’t come easy to them.
In the next stanza, I focus even deeper on the topic by talking about the restricting “Freedom” Americans claims we have a right to—”you strip a little piece of dignity” (taking away simple rights based off status of citizenship) “for the people who have clarity” (clarity in the sense of having a different sense of mind due to the difference in struggles and experiences people with documents versus people who don’t have documents have to go through (each person’s definition of “clarity” may or may not differ). “Slap a name on it for people who live within the casual luminosity” (to bring attention to how we, as a society, tend to label people or put them into certain boxes. People who are just waking up every day in the journey of finding a purpose to carry out until they die. Casual luminosity. Casual everyday living auras. Living light. In the interview, L states that they like to “go out with [their] cousins, a lot,” and “that’s one of the most enjoyable things [they] do” (11:55). I invert this into stanza five, line two by comparing L’s joy in hanging out with his cousins to a much deeper and more rooted problem. How does society and humanity coexist as one without having the same “Mother.” Mother in the sense of “all things greater than me.” How do people overcome fear, hatred, and differences if we won’t all first identify as being all the same? All equal? All following and breathing for the same purpose of enjoying and fulfilling our lives until we eventually die?
In stanza six, I state that the “universe spins on the same frequency, even if we don’t speak the same currency.” In saying this, I try to illustrate a picture, a visual so my audience can depict the kind of angle I am trying to portray. In the interview with L, they state that they had struggled with reading for a long time, even in kindergarten they would still struggle more than their peers. In my poem, I compare language to currency, that even though there are a lot of people who speak many different languages, it does not suggest that we are any better than the next. It is simply a currency we have; we get to use it whenever and however we want all the while reaping the benefits of being able to communicate with one another. If we strip away someone’s right to speech or degrade someone for not being fluent in one language or the other, we deny someone’s right to currency, we deny them a rite of passage. Stanza seven hits L’s struggles with stereotypes placed upon them and their family. In the interview they state that people have “tried to get my dad into selling drugs and all of that but he always said no and now I have one uncle that is here and the rest— some are incarcerated, some are in other states and some are in Mexico because of deportation” (1:51). I use this to incorporate “it’s all about how they handle each other’s vices, you have one language that’s just sugar and spices and one language that’s all high rises” by using their story and struggle with problems with their family member’s and drugs and compare it to the way that society has to share each other’s experiences and “vices” in order come to a point of total unanimous acceptance.
Author Unknown, content containing peace propaganda, downloaded on April 6th, 2019, All rights reserved.
In the second to last stanza, I incorporated a direct quote from L themselves, “All things in this world die.” In the interview, I ask L if there is a specific or special quote he relates too and that is the first part of the quote. I find this to be the main anchor to this entire narrative poem. We all live, we all breathe, and we all die. The reason for any kind of discrimination of someone else due to their ethnic, sexual, or religious belief is pointless. If we all breathe, we all die. If we all die, what makes one person better than the next? L had a different childhood because of the struggles and battles their parents had to deal with. Although a burden at times, L takes all of this in a very warm-hearted light, they take these struggles and turn them into lessons. I state at the very end; “Do you walk, or do you run? Are you the moon or are you the sun?” Ultimately, no matter what you decide to be, you must remember that the moon is merely a reflection of the sun. We all walk and we all eventually run. It’s simply a cycle, and that cycle is called life.
Elisa Riva, “Mental Health”, 2017, All rights reserved.
Was I so different? Were my goals so wrong?
Clouded my thoughts, ruining my existence
I wanted to be happy, be with right person
Suffocated by the wool they pulled over me
Mask of cotton hiding the truth, unseen
No choice was there, I had to breath
The truth was here, they needed to see
Removing the shackles of my fleece prison
Above the herd I had risen
Appeared to have the same face, but different
My face is still there, isn’t it?
My feelings were true, they said it was a sin
Held tightly by the jaws of Satan
I realized then I was neither sheep nor devil
Instead I was human, trapped in the middle
Their clothes of wool and these bleating sheep
Turned sour snarls and gnashing teeth
Before were sheep, now turned wolves
Convulsing, disgusting, wretched souls
Barking, biting, clawing, scraping
Screaming, crying, running, shaking
“Help me! Please!”
I screamed and screamed
I had no choice, I had to flee
That was the only way I could be free
I grabbed my things and flew far away
I found myself a new place: a city
Andre Peterson, “Kansas City – Grass Field Beside Building Structure”, 2019, All rights reserved.
No sheep, no wolves, no devils; but people
When I showed my face, they did not
tremble
I had family, friends, and a new home
Rather, they welcomed me with open
arms:
My partner that I love and cherish
I had to protect it: my right to love
I now go far and wide
From political to social
From down below to up above
Architect of the Capitol, “US government”, 1996, All rights reserved.
“Accept people for who they are,
To tell everyone about my message:
Not for who you want them to be!
People speak up and out!
Stand together and with each other,
as parts of community or allies;
We are united, we are as one,
We will create a more accepting world!”
Steven, “Picture of Steven”, 2019, All rights reserved.
I interviewed a former member of the LGBTQIA affairs council at UMKC, Steven, where we discussed his struggles with his sexuality throughout his life. Steven was homosexual amongst a religious community intolerant of homosexuals, forcing him to act the role of the “black sheep.” Even with this, Steven still was involved with the church community, providing the metaphor that Steven was a “sheep following the herd.” Throughout the poem, I used other words such as “herd”, “wool”, “cotton”, etc. to follow the symbolism. The line “Suffocated by the wool they pulled over me,” means the “sheep” – Steven’s community – were forcing their views upon Steven, overwhelming him and, in a sense, “suffocating” him. Throughout this part, Steven struggles to find the strength until finally can remove “the shackles of [his] fleece prison” and rises above the herd, a symbol of Steven coming out to his community.
I drew from other artistic sources to compose this poem. One of them was Night and Fog by Alain Resnais. It is a documentary describing people’s lives in death camps during the Holocaust. At one point the narrator questions “[w]ho among us keeps watch over this strange watchtower to warn the arrival of our new executioners? Are their faces really different from our own?” Resnais questions, how can these “executioners” do such cruel acts towards their fellow human? I wrote the line “Appeared to have the same face, but different/ My face is still there, isn’t it?” I was inspired by this quote, emphasizing that his community that he grew up with suddenly couldn’t “recognize” him, they couldn’t accept him.
The sheep transforming into wolves was inspired by the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. The concept of the play was that people were changing into rhinoceroses, except for the protagonist, Dudard. This created a lot of confusion and panic between the humans and the rhinoceroses. Since humans spoke a different language compared to the rhinoceroses, communication between these two groups was impossible. I used the lines “Their clothes of wool and these bleating sheep/Turned sour snarls and gnashing teeth,” describing the people of Steven’s community transforming into these creatures that he could not relate to anymore. He could not reason or communicate with them, so he had to move somewhere else.
Steven, “Steven and Spouse”, 2019, All rights reserved.
The last ark of the poem talks about Steven moving to a new place – Kansas City – and finding a community that accepts him and his identity, during this process, he finds his husband and establishes his life. During the interview, once Steven made it to Kansas City, he said he started “trying to empower and involve [himself] with friends, community, organizations that are supportive and uplifting; also trying to educate and advocate for myself and others, teaching others things that they might have never gained any kind of insight, exposure, too.” He is also an advocate for implementing government policies that support him and his community. I used the lines “I now go far and wide…We will create a more accepting world!” because of his involvement and goals of creating a more accepting world the LGBT community. I also decided to change the rhyming scheme to a non-rhyming scheme to establish these ideas a little more clearly.
Culture and identity is something that everyone takes pride in. Haleyanne Mawhosay is a Filipino that lives in Kansas City and has been through many encounters where her race has made people put a certain label on her. These seem to happen all through school where she is in public and there is a very diverse group of people all in one place. She described how the two most common cliches that people would use as devices to be racist towards her were “all Asians are smart” and “all Asians look the same.”
Andrew Dressman, Philippines, March 2019. All rights reserved.
Haleyanne has gotten many racist comments from both students and teachers. She talks about an experience in elementary school when they had group assignments the teacher would put all the Asians in one group. “They were all really subtle things like really subtle, like for example putting all the Asians in one group in elementary school in a reading book, like did she mean to do that, I don’t know” (9:00). This made her always suspect why teachers would do this and she felt like she was being separated and singled out for her race in that situation. Later in high school when she was in social studies, her class was discussing the Vietnam War. She always felt uncomfortable during this time when the teacher would say something about the Vietnam War and the whole class would look at her, expecting her to know information about the topic more than anyone else just because she was Asian, not even Vietnamese. Hearing about this at first I was in complete shock, but after thinking about this, that type of racism happens around us all the time. Some cases can be milder and other cases will be much more direct and offensive. In this case, she said that she actually thought that they thought she was Vietnamese and that she could actually give insight into the situation. However, this was incredibly offensive to her because she felt like no one, not even the teacher put in the time to know her actual culture and identity.
Andrew Dressman, Philippines, March 2019, All rights reserved.
I don’t know how bad it must feel to be falsely identified and falsely labeled, however, I’ve experienced it happening to other people of many different cultures, to where their race is either falsely identified and compared to another race or they are straight up just being made fun of for their race. What I notice is that when a racist comment gets made; the victim won’t show that they are being affected or hurt in any way because they don’t want to draw more attention to themselves and they just want to fit in. This makes the one that makes the comment feel like it’s okay to say these things because they think it’s just a joke but in no situation ever it’s okay and it definitely should never be seen as a joke. The best way I can try to see how it makes them feel is by trying to put myself in her shoes. It would make me feel like less of a person and it would dehumanize me just a little bit to think that people see me as just a person in a cluster of races without them actually knowing my real identity and culture. I think it is super important to learn about everyone’s individual culture cause then you get to know the person fully for who they are and you can understand their practices and where they came from in a much more personal way.
Andrew Dressman, Philippines, March 2019. All rights reserved.
Haleyanne states that she thinks white people have very similar features as well and she will often see white people that look very similar. However, because she knows that diversity is a big thing in this world she doesn’t think of it as any different than her race because, in the end, we are all human beings. Another thing that I think is interesting is that she says is that everyone thinks that she is either Vietnamese or Chinese. “I’m not Vietnamese, like that’s one thing, everyone thinks I’m Vietnamese or Chinese, cause yeah like growing up no one knew what the Philippines was like is that a color, like no one knew what it was” (9:10). I think this is interesting because it’s not only racist to her race but also to Vietnamese and Chinese people because she says that each one of those races has very different practices and ideologies.
Andrew Dressman, Philippines, March 2019, All rights reserved.
Haleyanne brings up how she thinks Asians are all classified into one area because often their dress and style will be similar. She mentions how it is actually very true that Asian children have very few hairstyles that they choose from and that the clothing style can be similar. However, she also states that these are just trends and that it is the very same thing with other races. Like how White people will wear jeans and tennis shoes often, it is the very same thing and if we were to see it from their lens that we would notice that we all dress very similar as well because of what may be in style at the time. I think this is hypocritical to think of because it does kind of bleed into another topic of how people are trying to fit in and look like everyone else, yet people make fun of other races for looking too much like each other.
Haleyanne says that the more offensive comments actually come at a young age because children will be immature and say whatever they think is funny, however, there is another part of it that she says people started finding her race and diversity to be very cool and unique once she got to high school. She says she doesn’t know why this is, but I think that this might be the case because when we are younger we are all trying to fit in and we are very self-conscious about ourselves at this time, but when we get older we are trying to find our own identity and discover what separates us from the rest and so we think that it is cool that people like her already have a distinguishing factor that separates us from the rest. Sadly this can’t be said for everyone and segregation and racism still happens in school.
Andrew Dressman, Philippines, March 2019, All rights reserved.
I think this is a running issue that happens all around the country and Kansas City is no different. Kansas City is very racially diverse and this makes it difficult for racism to not happen but then it also makes the city more accepting of it because we are surrounded by different races every day. In schools, I believe that teachers and students need to be more aware of each individual’s racial identity in order to avoid segregation and this will, in turn, see everyone for who they are and not put false labels on specific groups of people.
It leads to a life of crime and untrustworthy cops,
A race to the end of this was all he thought.
And now growing up it still proceeds to happen,
So he keeps his head down in frustration;
An observant life and no confrontations.
He sees white like you say black
Except he is at wrong for saying something back.
Wanting to live a life so full while getting
restrained
But besides skin color, they are the same.
Only a white person gets a police citation,
Until the world makes a change, no one will win.
We will all suffer from this name game
It should be taken more serious for it is insidious.
All races struggle to be superior
Why does color make us judge the legitimacy of a man’s
exterior and interior?
Eye to eye, hand in hand
Equal is where I stand.
Parker Houck, Portrait of Parker and Michael, Kansas City, February 25th, 2019. All rights reserved.
I recently had a talk with an old high school friend, Michael Combs. We discussed differences between our races and what he personally deals with due to the color of his skin. In my class that I am taking at UMKC, Anchor 214 European Culture, we were assigned to read the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. In Maus, a comic book, one is able to find numerous hardships that the Jews had to overcome during the Holocaust. The story is about the author’s Jewish father, who endured the Holocaust from start to finish. Spiegelman’s intent for writing this comic was to not only try to fully understand his culture’s history during the Holocaust but to also find his purpose as a modern day Jew. He used animal masks to identify and symbolize different social groups; Jews, for example, wore masks that portrayed witty mice trying to run from the authority of German soldiers that were seen as cats. I would like to connect my conversation with Michael to these symbols used in the book to further explain how sometimes, covering identity takes away from who you want to be- the real you, an uncovered face in society who is seen for who they are. Michael learned at a young age that he was not going to be seen the same as everyone else. After racing a white boy in elementary school and being called out for his dark skin, he realized his life was always going to be different. During my talk with him, he said something that stuck out to me: “As long as people see color there isn’t much we can do” (03:40). After growing up, he told me that he has consciously decided to embrace adversity and stands up for who he is as a man, which has shown his true identity. Michael does not need a mask like the characters in Maus wore, but a lot of cultures around the world feel they need to cover up who they are for safety reasons and to dodge harm. Justice for discrimination is a never-ending, ongoing story that many cultures will have to deal with for generations. Until the world does not see color or difference anymore, discrimination will always be a problem.
Nancy Ziegler, Photo of Jonathan and I, Kansas City, 2018. All Rights Reserved.
In recent years, there has been a growing acceptance for people who are LGBTQ+. We can see this through events like the United States making gay marriage legal in all 50 states, through shows like Queer Eye that have exploded in popularity and through many teenage movies such as Love, Simon that speak of acceptance. This outburst of support has been a recent development, and my friend Jonathan and I remember growing up in a time where it was still of taboo to be homosexual. Even more so when compared to 70 years ago. Gay people have been persecuted throughout history in almost every culture. They were included in the groups of people sent to death camps by the Nazis, but their stories are largely nonexistent. Discovering a chance to get the story of my gay best friend, seemed like a great way to honor the gay people who never got to tell their stories.
Jonathan was adopted from Moldova when he was a little over a year old. He grew up in, “…a very liberal, very comfortable family” (01:15). He admits to having a negative self-image while growing up, especially when he realized his sexuality and in turn how society viewed it at the time. He references one specific factor that played a role in this self-image, his father and the jokes made about gay people. I understood what he was talking about, growing up calling someone gay was just something you did, there was no thought behind it.
Jonathan Cruickshank, Photo of Jonathan’s Moldovan Passport, Kansas City, 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Jonathan Cruickshank, Photo of Jonathan’s Adoption Papers from Moldova, Kansas City, 2019. All Rights reserved.
Similar to the mob mentality that people took on during the pogroms in WWII. “Before I even came out to anyone my dad would jokingly make like very crude jokes about gay people. And you know the funny thing is, there was no motive behind it” (02:25). The results were a complicated relationship between father and son, where Jonathan saw a complicated picture. On one hand, he saw his father as the liberal, very accepting man that was someone he could look up to, but on the other, he still said these horrible jokes about gay people, intentional or not. His father became an example of what Jonathan came to worry about other people. This same kind of fear many gay people back then had to live with as well, except none of them could come out. “If my own father thinks this, even if there is no motive behind it, then God what is someone walking down the street going to think of me?” (03:10).
When Jonathan finally did choose to come out to someone for the first time around 6th grade, it was not a well-received response, so much so that this person told him, “well that’s just disgusting” (05:28). This shocked me because Jonathan and I were friends for over a decade, yet I did not know about this incident. I was also shocked because of the response, it doesn’t make sense in my mind to justify saying something like to anyone regardless of your relationship. Jonathan responded to my disbelief, “So even if it wasn’t her like calling me disgusting, it was like her calling my sexuality disgusting [but that’s] still apart of me” (06:00). This was thankfully the only negative coming out experience that he ever had to deal with. Jonathan says that as he got older, he became more sure of himself, and that the people he did choose to come out to, it took a lot of confidence to do that. But it brings up that question anyway of why do gay people even need to “come out”? No one goes to their loved ones to declare being straight. Because in our society we just assume the default sexuality is heterosexual, and that because you’re not a part of the “norm” you need to officially declare it, which seems like it would have some negative stigma to it.
The Flag Shop, Photo of a Rainbow Flag, theflagshop.co.uk, April 2019, Copyright The Flag Shop All Rights Reserved.
In addition to a bad first time coming out experience, Jonathan had experienced another negative response to him just being himself again, through words. We were seniors in high school at the time and he was working at a kid’s clothing store, primarily a girls one. He had been experiencing a normal shift when a father and daughter duo came into the store. He had assisted them in finding her some outfits, most of which she liked and they were ready to check out. As Jonathan was ringing them up for the clothes the father said something to Jonathan. “…the dad you know jokingly says “God you must be a fag to work here”. And I was just kind of like no, not really. Sexuality doesn’t really play a role in the hiring process here” (10:10). Jonathan said that nothing had escalated further from the one comment and that even though it may seem like a minor incident it was a major one in his life. I made the comment of comparing this remark to the ones that his father had made about gay people. They are the kind of comments that stem from ignorance and more people aren’t even aware of the implications that their words have. A big difference between the two is that Jonathan’s father genuinely cares about him and that this was a stranger trying to be funny. This was another incident that affected his self-image that he admits he is still struggling with today, but fortunately not enough to completely shatter the confidence that he has been building over the years.
The topic of self-image and worrying about what other people think led us into the discussion of things like public displays of affection (PDA) with a significant other. PDA is a common sight with straight couples, it is one of those things you grow up seeing on TV and in public spaces. Seeing PDA with a gay couple? Not nearly as common, although this trend seems to be changing. Jonathan however still feels that discomfort that society exudes when a gay couple chooses to display affection. “It’s not like I’m not comfortable with PDA and it’s not that I’m not comfortable holding my boyfriend’s hand while I walk down the street. It’s the fact that I don’t feel safe” (14:54). This is another one of those things that straight couples and people, in general, do not seem to worry about or have ever had to think about. As his friend I understood Jonathan put a lot of thought into his appearance and I always attributed that to someone who cared about their health and taking care of themselves. While maybe a small percentage of it may be that, most of his need to take care of self-image stems from the fear of being judged, and possibly a confrontation. In regards to someone actually approaching him and saying something just because of the way that he is, he says, “That’s more fearful to me because I know words have more of an impact that someone else’s actions do. It almost strikes me with fear and almost shuts me down to the point where, like I said, I’m not going to walk down the street. At least in Kansas City, I’m not going to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand because I would feel very uncomfortable” (17:52). I understood why he would feel that way about Kansas City. Despite the progress that has been made in Kansas City for the LGBTQ+ community, it is still not nearly as accepting as a place like San Francisco. The representation in a state like Missouri is still so much more conservative than a place like California, and not having representatives who advocate for your sexuality still allows for those unfavorable parties to speak out against the gay community.
Jonathan Cruickshank, Photo of Jonathan, Chicago Pride, 2018. All Rights Reserved.
However, despite all of the negative experiences that Jonathan has dealt with, he is optimistic about the future. He believes that as our generation gets older, as well as all the younger ones, that a more accepting society will emerge. When I asked him there was one thing about our current society that he wished to change “that societal ideal that a man and a woman, that’s the perfect marriage” (19:04). He also offers one piece of advice to others that may be in a similar situation “Gauge your situation, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, then don’t do it” (20:43). He continued to talk about what made him so optimistic and this made me reflective. I had never discussed this with Jonathan so deeply before. And while I already viewed myself as someone who was accepting of gay people and people of different sexualities, I was never given the perspective of what it felt like to be gay. And with one of his final statements, he summed up how we both felt “People should and can be more tolerant” (22:56).
Do people’s actions and words deserve to get a rise out of individuals different from them? Is it our duty to fight ignorance and discrimination for the improvement of the younger generation’s future? For being in such a liberal part of the Midwest, she has faced more discrimination than anywhere else. Growing up in three different states, Louisiana, Maryland, and Missouri, her childhood has been shaped to fit the social norm around her. Starting with Louisiana, the southern United States. It wasn’t always easy being an African-American woman in a racist part of town. Growing up with other kids and having them be disgusted by her appearance. She was judged for everything, even the very words she spoke. Apparently being “very articulate with [her] words” and using proper English was not a fad in southern Louisiana (04:21). She was taught well by her mother but was unfortunately made fun of “trying to be white” for not using social slang (04:59). She was not trying to be something she wasn’t; she was living the only way she knew how. They accused her of thinking she was better than the other kids. When she saw other kids experiencing similar racial profiling, she asked for help. She asked her school administrators and they claimed they couldn’t do anything about it. She disagreed, “there is something [they] can do about it. [They] just don’t want to do anything about it” (09:30). She was always “an outcast” and she never even got along with other African-Americans (05:05). She did get “along with white people” but they would often “cross the line” in some of the things they would say (05:05). She has always been isolated because she was different from everybody else. Much like in They Were Just People by Bill Tammeus and Jacques Cukierkorn, a collection of true stories that tell about personal times during the Holocaust. One story in particular about Zygie and Sol Allweiss, a portion of the story says that Zygie was taken in by a nice family because the Germans did not view the “Jews as fellow human beings” much like someone would isolate a person just for their color or appearance (They Were Just People).
When she was in early high school, she began to change; she realized that she was sexually attracted to girls. For her, this was the third tier for social discrimination, and her guardians were not supportive at all. For years she’s been hearing horrible things from the people that she thought were her role models. “We don’t want you to be gay” her mother exclaims, “We want you to have a nice little marriage, with a man” (12:13). Hearing that at an already rebellious age made her even more afraid to express herself. She would try and “force [herself] to be with guys…[she] would always keep going back to girls” (12:13). Trying to be something she was not, she was starting to see that if she tried to live up to her mother’s expectations, she would be miserable her entire life. She realized if her family really loved her, they would not try to change who she already was.
Kansas City is overall, a politically divided city. You have liberals and conservatives; you have safe spaces and places of discrimination. A place that has been safe in her judgment is her place of work. Starbucks has given her a space to be herself and work freely without worry of judgment. She hasn’t “dealt with any racism from [her] co-workers” or “any homophobia” because everyone who works there comes from different backgrounds (14:23). It is important to surround ourselves with positive energy and supportive people, and she found that at her place of work.
So, I asked her what it was like being African-American, homosexual, and a woman. “Sometimes being a woman is like, the third tier” she exclaims (16:08). She has experienced discrimination in all three categories, and the one person she should trust has let her down the most. When she was a young teenager, she was beginning to question her sexuality. “[Her] mother found out that [she] liked girls, and she treated [her] like absolute garbage” (16:40). Her mother took away all of her privileges so she couldn’t contact girls. Her mother used her own religion against her, saying “that’s not what God wants from you” and drove her away from Christianity (16:40). She considered her religion to be her safe space and when her mother used it against her to tell her what she was doing was wrong, she made the decision not to follow any religion. Her mother was ashamed and told her not to express herself on social media out of fear of being embarrassed, but she wasn’t about to change who she was to gratify people she barely even knew. Her relationship with her mother was deteriorating slowly over a period of time, and she has said some crazy things. Her mother asked why she couldn’t be like other parents and “just have to deal with [her] being boy crazy” and not be ashamed of her daughter (19:47). It is hard on her now because she unfortunately still lives with her mother, and their relationship is toxic. It is hard when someone longs for a good relationship with a parent but keeps having to push them away because they aren’t supportive or loving in the ways one would expect. Luckily, she has a strong relationship with her father; she is not completely unsupported in her journey.
One can either dwell on the past or learn from it. This brave young woman has chosen to learn from her past and it has made her so much stronger. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in the black community, it doesn’t matter if you hang around with straight people, gay people, like there is always going to be somebody, somebody that has an issue with you” (24:00). She strives to make a change by encouraging people to be more accepting and open-minded. She gives advice to people in similar situations, “do anything to relieve your stress” she says (26:15). She encourages people not to entertain racism, bigotry, or homophobia. She always picks her battles wisely and intervenes when she feels it is the right thing to do. She doesn’t feel the need to react to everything thrown her way. Patience and tolerance are key for her to live stress-free. “Not every reaction needs a reaction” and I feel everyone should introduce this to their lives and learn from situations (07:13). We as a society should not be focusing on isolating people because they are of a different race, sexuality, or gender. If we express our voice and fight the ignorance and the prejudice in this country, we may be a virtuous nation once again.
